February 08, 2008
Subject: Reflection, Introspection, and Resolution
From: “jacob sale werblow”
Date: Fri, February 8, 2008 11:22 am
(Hatshepsut)
(Best View)
(Pyramids)
“Falling out of love” is just as natural as “falling into love,” but the former,
like having a seesaw partner jump off while you are in mid thrust, tends to be more
bruising. If indeed a cloud of gloom hung over my countenance when I left for
Morocco, soon if not the hand of Zeus lifted me up I did experience some sort of,
well, epiphany.
Was ancient Roman city of Volubilis built in vain or was there some sort of
connection between what lay below my feet and me? Cognitively, we accept that our
lives are merely ink blots on the two million year timeline of humanity. Indeed, we
are an extension of those who came before us — and if our mothers and fathers not be
Romans, then they are Chinese, Nubians, Mesopotamians, Mayans, etc. And from the
looks of the mosaics, hieroglyphics, and statues left behind, they don’t look much
different from us.
Yet time exists beyond linearity. Picture the scene: 31 year old me standing above
2,000 year old mosaics, with the 4.5 billion year old ball of fire we call the sun
above. All three elements existing simultaneously, thus time is multi-dimensional.
(Treasury)
Roughly 400 meters from where I stood, a local sheepherder lives a life that is
little different than that of other herders thousands of years before. At the same
time, old widows who should be enjoying their ‘golden years’ with their
grandchildren are begging in dirty street corners of Tangier; a man crawls through
the market in Asfou because he has no wheelchair; an English teacher in Casablanca
who makes $60 of disposable income a month cannot afford to marry his girlfriend; a
retired national soccer player in Cairo is bored with his marriage; a Berber woman
in the mountains worries about her son’s epilepsy and can’t decipher the doctor’s
prescriptions.
Although each life trajectory is both different in its direction and in its rate of
“progress,” over the last two months, I was astonished time and time again by one
fact: We are so damn similar to each other, regardless of class, race, sexual
orientation, age, and oral hygiene. True, many of us “Westerners” acquire ipods, 300
channel flatscreen televisions, and half-gallon organic soymilk, yet the
similarities of the human race far exceed its differences. This is also true at the
genetic level. But we are so easily duped into thinking others are so unlike us.
So, as the nightly news tunes us into the horrors of humanity, remember that we all
want better things, we all love to laugh, we all crave good food, we all get
discouraged by politics, we all experience heartache, and most of us don’t look like
swimsuit models and that’s okay! Ninety-nine percept of all of the people on planet
Earth are not killing each other nor stealing from their neighbors at this very
moment. Sure, not every social interaction on this trip was lovely, but outside of
the exchange of monetary interaction, friendships can arise so naturally. It’s a
simple message, but if the people in the Middle East aren’t much different than us
then who is? The Quebecqua?
The end.
(Rainy Day)
(Jerash)
(Rabat)